Legit Reviews

why are you at 214MHz? don't go backwards, the chip can handle waayyy more than that esp. under water, go to 220MHz, then add voltage as needed to be stable, then bump the frequency some more and add voltage as needed again

as for the warning go to your PC health status page of your BIOS where it lists the voltages you are at and temperatures, i set everything to disabled in the whole tab (CPU smart fan, System smart fan Hardware thermal protection, and anything that says warning etc.)

OK, it crashed after 17 minutes. And its got problems booting. right now I have it set at (I'm on my laptop now, so i can't post screens):
CPU OverClock MANUAL
CPU/HT Ref Clock 230
Processor Freq Multiplier x14.0 2800 MHz
CPB Control DISABLED
CPU/NB Freq 9.00X
CPU OverVoltage 1.03125
VDDNB OverVoltage .88125
HT Link Freq 200MHz

These are the settings that I have been changing. After reading and re-reading your post, these are what I thought that you were talking bout. Are these the right settings to be altering?

what are the voltages actually set to? (not the +xxx but real voltage (you should be around 1.5v CPU))

Windows started into repair mode (pressed the wrong key)....gotta wait til it finishes cuz it won't let me cancel it. When it comes back up, I'm gonna reset everything to default and start from the beginning. When it comes back, the actual voltages...do mean displayed in the BIOS menu or in CPU-Z? ( Again I send my many thanks...to say that I am a newb...well, I've never played with a BIOS before...LOL)

I think I hosed up the comp...it won't boot now....nothing...won't even go to the boot menu....just black screen....comp is on and powered up, but no boot....

for my specific chip and 890GX board pretend that says +.200 for CPU^ and sideport should be set to normal, i've had that pic for a while and change things daily as i'm in the middle of doing some 4.13GHz benchmark runs (start doing the runs at 10pm when it gets cold outside (cold being 45F)). just know as you're doing it, crashing is NOT bad, if it boots at all it's a good thing really the only time i get mad is when it doesnt come back from a reboot with new settings and i have to clear the CMOS and reenter all settings

if 220 isnt stable at stock voltages, +one notch on CPU voltage and CPU-NB

can also just set the PLL and NB voltage and NB/PCIe/PLL voltage one or two notches below orange and leave them there the entire time you're overclocking, those settings don't add much heat and are mainly just for additional stability. orange or red is too high for all values for day to day use, if you do that then you can really just focus on CPU-NB and CPU voltage

basically how it works is:
if you can boot to windows, you're golden, maybe one notch CPU voltage higher to be safe
if it crashes during the boot process, one notch, possible two on the CPU/CPU-NB
if you can boot to windows and run prime95 for 10min, add some MHz

can make that into a flow chart haha



edit: when you get just a black screen it means you need to hit the clear CMOS jumper by your CMOS battery on the mobo, use the jumper for about 5sec then put it back to normal location

Thank you for all your help today, bro. I've got the CMOS cleared, and all is back to stock. I'm gonna give it a break for tonight (cross-eyed and headache-LOL), and get back into it tommorow after work. I have this post marked, and will be hitting it again tmw. I will definitely keep that in mind about crashing. And I've printed some of this post to reference. It's kinda confusing since we're not looking at the same BIOS. LOL. Thanks again and we will probably talk tomorrow!!!

ok, so far so good. included are pics of my BIOS, and screen of CPUZ and core temp running Prime95.

i'm gonna guess that VDDA=PLL, VDDNB=CPU-NB, and i have no idea what loadline calibration would be, is it a voltage or a frequency?

Its actually a percentage. 3.225, 6.450, 9.675, 12.90, 16.125, 19.35, 22.575, 25.8, 29.025, 32.25, 35.475, 38.7, 41.925, 45.15.......all the way up to 100% I flashed the BIOS to the newest version (seems to have reverted, and I had a BIOS from 5/2010....there was a newer one listed in ASUS Update from 6/18/2010), and I have a new setting between freq multiplier and CPU/NB, its AMD Turbo CORE, which I disabled.

Bumped up to 230 Bus, and CPU/NB Freq to 9.00x, and gonna give it another run. This is pretty close to the settings that I had last night when it was semi-stable.

OK, ran for over 20 minutes....I know, gotta run for longer....right now it's running stable @ 3.2, and I will be running Prime again later tonight. Got some home stuff to take care of, but will hit it again tomorrow, if not later on this evening...

Wait a minute....why is CPU-Z showing 1.7GHz?!?!?! HUH??? Any ideas???

you must have either set your CPU multiplier to 7.5x or it is throttling, but looking at CPUz you need more vcore (CPU overvoltage) as you should be at least 1.35v not 1.296 (i would be at 1.4v or higher)

Any reason why it could be throttling??? I just checked the multi and its set @ 14 in the BIOS

Just re-ran Blend and got this....




8/3/2010: okay, I'm trying to identify which setting need to be un"Auto"-ed in the BIOS, and what their respective default settings should be. I've been checking back to your replys and I think that I have it now....I've got the CPU voltage set to 1.425 in the BIOS, but it's still showing that Core Voltage drops to 1.344 in CPU-Z. Right now P95 is running, and gonna let that run for a few more minutes....is stable so far....then back to BIOS

i would say keep going until load consistently breaks ~52C. thats still pretty cold, but the colder the better for daily use, mine loads at around 58C depending on the room temp and i don't like it that hot at all

OK bro... i was able to get to 3.8, and my settings came very close to yours. The problem is, when I get into windows, and fire up core temp, cpu-z, and P95, CPU-Z is showing a multiplier of 7.5, not 14. Restart and check the BIOS, and it shows x14 multi, which is where I set it. Could this possibly be a voltage issue?

I just watched it, and CPU-z shows x14 until P95 starts. Within 4 seconds of P95 starting, it throttles to 7.5.

sounds like it is throttling it to protect something, what temps are you running at?

Re-running P95 after giving it a break for a second. right now its @ 43C, with a high temp (previous run) of 50C. CRAP! it just throttled as I was typing this....yeah, right as a temp spiked (@ 51C) it cut back. now the temp is erratic (45->51->46->49->46), usually it will spike, then level off. after about 3 minutes, it'll bounce between 44C and 46C. stopping after 4 minutes....back to BIOS....

as soon as I take the load off of it, it goes back to x14 multiplier.


31C @ idle

bump your CPU voltage to 1.5, see if it changes

Question: I'm still at work, but for later today....I've seen a lot of the rigs with 4GB of RAM. Mine has 8GB. Is this a problem/conflict? Also, I have 2 different types of RAM installed (G. Skill F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM, timings 8-8-8-24 1.6V; and F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL, timings 9-9-9-24-2N, 1.5V---both sets 1600MHz DDR3), and I have my timings set to the 9 settings. If this could be an issue, should I remove one set, and go with the 4GB instead of 8GB?

When I set the timings, I ran memtest and it all checked out good.

And as soon as I get home, I will change the CPU voltage and try again.

the problm with mixing RAM is that they are not made for the same voltage, my 1.5v kit (ripjaws) won't run above 1.545v and will not run at anything lower than 1.5v (a range which surprisingly allows 1250MHz-1730MHz mostly stable)